Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Recommendation for family activities

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone had experience with extremely bright ones (ages 4 or 5) in the family that don't do well with average evening family activities.

Let me try to clarify if I can! As a family, we try hard in the evenings and weekends to have family time by encouraging family games, crafts, puzzles, mind puzzles etc. My ds wants to participate but immediately thinks it's better to follow his own rules and make up his own way of doing things. It's very frustrating and no matter what we do it ends up with him just going off and doing his own thing which is usually just playing on the computer by himself.

He bores easily with repetitive games or activities and wants to "spice" things up but he's 4 and it usually ends up being nonsense and only fun for him. Unfortunately he is a little young yet for building models or doing anything too intricate and we seem to be stuck in a sort of limbo. The last thing we as a family want to do is see him spend too much time by himself on a computer but it always seems to be what he prefers.

Any advice for a struggling family on how to bring us together for group activities without boring our child that seems to be rapidly becoming smarter than his parents!!

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Truckee_Mom

Do you have other children besides him? If so what are their ages?

DS was very much like what you describe at 4 years of age, but because he is an only child, we mostly were able to follow his lead. It would have been harder had we needed to accomodate other kids' needs and developmental levels.

Hi acs - thanks for the quick reply. He is our only child so it is easy to allow him to take the lead on play. But we also don't want him to be "king" (so to speak) all the time and dictate how we play everything. It's also painful to us to play his nonsense games all the time! Sure would be fun to actually do some fun things together and not just weird 4-year old games!

Truckee_Mom

My own experience was that 4 was just a really hard age. It is certainly the age that I found most trying (and the age that DH and I decided that there really would not be any more children). DS was highly verbal and sounded much more mature than her really was. He was smart and quick, but not the least bit rational. I kept tryinig to treat him like he was rational, but he was not--he was profoundly passionate and easily overwhelmed by all he was figuring out about the world.

I would suggest lettiing him lead for the amount of time that you can handle it--say 5 or 10 minutes. Set the timer so you both know how long it will last. When it's done it's done. Then do something you can handle, like reading a bedtime story. Or 5 minutes of your game then 5 minutes of his game. The worst part was when there seemed like there was no end in sight. One of my stock phrases was, "I;m sorry, mommy just isn't very good at pretend games. I can only play this for 5 minutes, then I will have used up all my pretend."

But the best news is that this is temporary. Remember to write down some of his crazy ideas and words and games. Because when you want to remember them (like I do now so I could share them with you) they may all be forgotten. When he is 6, I guarantee he will be a totally different creature and you will h ave the games you always dreamed of. DS is 12 and we have family game night regularly and he often beats us using rules we all agree on!

Here we love to eat together and talk. We actually enjoy eating together so much, that I am sometimes feeding the kids fruits before dinner , waiting for DH to finally show up!
Our kids never liked board games too much. They play every once in a while, but this was never our "assigned" weekend/evening activity.
I like having a night out with my daughter. Like tonight. The boys are out camping in the snow, we watched Elizabeth, The Golden Age. Now she is curled up, asleep in my bed, Atos, our dog, beside her. Too bad I can't send you a picture:-)Both are beautiful.

Hi,

What works for our DD4.5 is to ask her what game or activity she would prefer. And if it is some board game, I let her choose some rules, but not all. Most of the time though she prefers something else than board games, like being read or playing fantasy games with her pirncesses and riders.

My problem is though to combine DD and turbo-DS (18 months) in one activity.... now that IS difficult

"But we also don't want him to be "king" (so to speak) all the time and dictate how we play everything. It's also painful to us to play his nonsense games all the time! Sure would be fun to actually do some fun things together and not just weird 4-year old games!"

Actually, this is perfectly normal for his age. Could be it manifests itself in an extreme way for a highly gifted child.
Believe it or not, he will grow out of it, maybe not till 6 or 7.
We've found it helpful to allow our girls to be the "queen" at times, but also teach them how to take turns and compromise so that other children will want to play with them!

Our DD5 loves Magnatiles.
We do a fair amount of imagination play. She has tons of little figures and does much creating of stories that go on and on and on!

On the upside, she is starting to write this year. So, she is becoming an author! Her latest tale is about a baby unicorn and it's great!

Good luck,
Incog

My DS5 has been doing the same thing fortunately he has 3 year old brother who happily plays crazy games with him

I suggest that you take turns, that's what we do with our kids. It could be Mom's turn, Daddy's turn and DS turn to choose. If your DS can write/type let him write down the rules, it could keep him nicely busy and would help with the game as well.

When our son was that age, we would sometimes:

* play chess (this was and is a favorite)
* work on a project (right now he's 8 and is helping my husband diagnose problems with a tube amplifier and repair it)
* work on a snap circuits set
* play Texas Hold'Em poker
* work with clay...this allowed for infinite creative possibilities. We recently made a chess set of Star Wars characters
* go for a post-dinner walk around the neighborhood and talk
* read parts of the newspaper and discuss current events
* invite friends or neighbors over for dinner and spend the evening talking with them
* go to a local concert - we live in an area with many classical, jazz, etc. concerts that have reduced ticket prices sometimes
* play together on a computer game, alternating turns. When our son was that age, he really loved Zoo Tycoon. We would take turns building exhibits and enjoyed that.

Have fun and don't limit yourself!

Tara

Hi Truckee Mom,

I love that other people had kids who could sit still and follow rules. But don't feel bad if your son can't handle it.

The only think my DS could have done on Tara's list was the family walks. He's just way too kinesthetic. Even family meals were tough for us because DS would take a bite of food and then get up and walk while he chewed!! We would have to follow after him or call him back to the table if we actually wanted to converse. Most of our conversation happened while on family walks! He has to move while he's thinking! Maybe your son is the same way.

Bouncing balloons is a great game for more active kids.